50 Years Building His Kingdom - Far Eastern Bible College

of Neo-evangelicalism is a case in point. The signing of the Evangelicals and
Catholics Together document in 1994 is another. Overall, the NIV does not seem
to have a good track record.
d. It is claimed by some that the New King James Version (NKJV) is as good as the
KJV, if not better than it, since it is also based on the Majority Text. Many of
members of the committee for the NKJV were godly men. Among all the modern
versions this is one that perhaps comes closest to the KJV. But there are also some
serious deficiencies in the NKJV. The godly men in the committee had little control
over how it finally turned out. They hoped to follow the KJV closely and just
update the archaic words, but in the end it has unfortunately not just updated the
archaic words but also altered many more words. (It has changed the KJV text in
about 60,000 places) Some of the changed words were perfectly good terms in the
KJV that should have remained unchanged. For example, the Comforter (Holy
Spirit) in John 14:16, 26 and 15:26 and 16:7 has been changed to “the Helper”
(following the NASV, and this is the same term used by Jehovah’s Witnesses).
3. “We do employ the KJV alone as our primary scriptural text in the public reading,
preaching and teaching of the English Bible.”
a. Most of the elements of our church worship service are based on the KJV. How
moving it is to hear our whole congregation saying the Lord’s prayer together
with the words, “Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name...” Any
church that abandons the KJV for the NIV would have to end their Lord’s prayer
without the words “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for
ever. Amen” if they want to be consistent with their text! If we were to remove the
KJV from our worship service many words and phrases in our worship would
gradually lose their significance. For example, the “Holy Ghost” which we mention
when we sing our Gloria Patri and Doxology would become obscure to those
who use modern versions which do not have this term at all. Besides this, the
lyrics of many of our best-loved hymns and old-time gospel choruses follow the
KJV. For example,“Great is Thy Faithfulness” which is based on Lamentations
3:22-23.
b. Some dislike the KJV on the grounds that its English belongs to the 17th century
and is archaic. Those who have studied literature would know that Shakespeare’s
English is even more difficult to understand than KJV English. In almost any
thick book there is always bound to be some words that the reader will not know.
The KJV is the same. In most cases, the surrounding context of a word will give a
good idea of what it means to the reader, who needs only to make the extra effort
to learn and explain some of the old English words in the KJV. For example,
“froward” means “wayward”, “usury” means “interest”.
4. “We do consider as unreliable all Bible versions (eg. The New International Version
or NIV) that modify or change the meaning of the original text or interpret it, instead
of giving a literal and accurate translation.”
a. The KJV translators adhered to the “formal equivalence” or “verbal equivalence”
method of translation. This means that they followed the text very closely
and did not modify or change the meaning. They took no liberties with God’s
Word, and only rephrased certain expressions, when changes were really necessary.
The KJV reading may sometimes be hard to understand but that is only
because it has given a literal translation of the wording of the Greek or Hebrew
text. And the wording of the original text of a particular verse may itself be difficult
to understand and may be interpreted in several ways as commentaries on
that verse will show. Modern translators overcome the difficulty by interpreting
the verses for the reader. But this totally obscures all other possible ways of interpreting
them. What we read then may not be God’s Word any more but what some
people think it means.
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